disciple (ch. 22)
by Tom Stuckey
22
It would take a few days to acclimatise to the real world; the main thing I noticed was that I was so accustomed to having everything done for me. In the facility, I had my meals brought to me, my clothes washed, and if I was still for too long I would have my body washed too. It was time to fend for myself and for us, so leaving Victoria wrapped in the sheets like a mummy, I dressed and went in search of food, for otherwise we would of quite happily disappeared into the tomb. I had not noticed the shed on arriving here the previous day, and looked out at it from the kitchen window at its frightening symbolic structure. I felt the call of the hunter before I found the shotgun, that was likely left by Victorias father, and decided it was time to try my luck at hunting.
I thought it best to keep the river on my left and follow it deeper down into the dale, that way I would not get lost, and maybe there would be more animals near the water, and covering for them in the trees that lined it. The first animals that I came across were sheep, and after a quick deduction abandoned the thought; bringing a sheep home would seem excessive, if not murderous. Heading deeper into some woods away from the river’s edge I began to feel an overwhelming fear, I had a gun, I was a stranger in these lands, and now my feet had decided to stop moving. I stood in the wood and listened to the sounds, the wood creaked, chirped and rustled. Taking a deep breath I took the shotgun and loaded it with the two shells and drew the hammers back and waited for the rustling to manifest. I had never killed anything before, but I was absolute in having been to so many abattoirs in my life, that if the opportunity presented itself, I would kill my own meat to eat, it was one less squealing misery in the world, I thought as I breathed and listened, focused on the rustling until first a spot and then a snout appeared, it was a baby bore. Figuring the mother was probably not too far away, I took aim and fired quickly, to not give chance to emotion, or stories of cute little baby pigs. It was thrown back a in its tracks and lay dead by the time I walked over to its body. I felt sad, terrible but also reassured that I was pure somewhere still, underneath the distortions. I picked up the body which was heavy for its small size and left with the river on my right, to the distant calls of what I imagined was a very distraught mother boar.
Back in the shed, I lay the baby pig on a painting table, first putting down a white painting sheet, which in hindsight was probably a bad idea as the blood shown against it made the whole thing more gruesome than it needed to be. Taking a knife from the kitchen block, I thought I heard Victoria stir so creeped back out, this was not the time for her to wake I thought. What part of the pig was the bacon? I thought, as I began to cut into the animals chest. It wasn’t long before I realised that I was way out of my depth, butchering an animal was obviously a very skilled job, done primarily by men who had a sort of calling for cutting things up. After a while I had taken out the innards, the bowls, the heart and the lungs but decided to not go any further without cutting off the head and skinning it; it needed to look more like meat, this was too much like a frenzy. Finally I found a hacksaw and cut it in half and hung one half on a hook to begin cutting strips of bacon. As I sliced, each slice became thinner as my hand adapted to the grip of the knife, which by now was wet and sticky at the same time, until I had perfectly sliced 6 rashers, 3 for me and 3 for Victoria.
Putting the other half on the hook to finish the hanging process, I went inside and was nearly overcome with euphoria, or adrenaline at least, when I found some eggs that were still in date, and began to cook what was surly going to be the best breakfast a man can have; having found and killed the animal himself in woods by his house. I wondered what Victoria would think as the frying bacon sent the most intense smells of fried fat and flesh into the air, having turned into complex sugars before doing so, so that the air actually tasted good. I heard Victoria stir and then a thud of a foot landing, and her call out, “What’s that smell, Is that meat cooking!” She sounded more surprised than angry, for she wasn’t the type to begrudge someone their needs at the expense of hers, but it would take some carful explaining about the hanging baby pig in her shed. Maybe she would forgo her vegetarianism when she found out that I had killed it myself.
Photo of Tom Stuckey
BIO: Tom is a writer from Devon in England. His work can be found at A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bristol Noir, Nut House Press, and Pulp Magazine. He is the author of The Canary in the Dream is Dead and The Sun Marches upon Us All. Learn more about Tom Stuckey at www.tomstuckey.com.